{"id":285,"date":"2016-11-01T12:02:45","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T16:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/?p=285"},"modified":"2016-11-01T12:02:45","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T16:02:45","slug":"light-breathing-heavy-essence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/russian-culture\/light-breathing-heavy-essence\/","title":{"rendered":"Light Breathing, Heavy Essence"},"content":{"rendered":"

In examining Ivan Bunin\u2019s short story \u2018<\/span>Light Breathing<\/span><\/i>,\u2019 I break down the work into three \u2018images\u2019 of Olga, located at the beginning, middle, and end of the piece. These three images give a certain aesthetic symmetry to the piece, as well as characterize the object (Olga herself) of the narrative.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first image is of Olga\u2019s gravesite, marked by a cross of oak- \u201cstrong, heavy, and smooth,\u201d marked by a \u2018solidity\u2019 and permanence <\/span> that the living Olga evaded, smooth in that all the transgressive \u2018bumps\u2019 of the living character (as narrative component) are no longer present. The wreath at the foot of the cross is not made up of living flowers-it is, rather, a porcelain wreath, a substance as \u2018pure\u2019 in content as it is \u2018dead\u2019 in form. An image of Olga herself is set behind glass: her \u2018life\u2019 is put behind a physical barrier (as she is beyond the \u2018barrier\u2019 created by death), cast into inanimate representation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The middle image is of \u2018living\u2019 Olga: she is portrayed as both curiously one-sided (as a \u2018young girl in flower\u2019 <\/span>device<\/span><\/i>, a tragic-romantic symbol in which the piece can strike its tone) and as \u2018modern,\u2019 living and vital in that, through the form of her discovered diary, she has a <\/span>voice<\/span><\/i>: Olga-as-life-force is a narrative moment that escapes the moment: her voice is <\/span>discovered<\/span><\/i>, carving a new structure into the work (found-document cuts into narrated-event). Both of these \u2018faces\u2019 for the character are alike in that they are <\/span>alive<\/span><\/i>, full of an energy stands in contrast to the images on either side of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The last image is, once more, of the gravesite. Olga, as a character, has lost the narrative \u2018voice\u2019 given by the found diary, and is once more a poetic object (this time for the schoolmistress). While the specific imagery contrasts with the first image (her breathing is light, the oak cross is heavy), notions of \u2018purity\u2019 and \u2018inanimacy\u2019 remain. The schoolmistress struggles to reconcile this symbolic transformation with the idea of \u2018living\u2019 character: \u201cThe wreath, the mound, the oaken cross! Could it really be that beneath the cross lay the one whose eyes shone so immortally from the medallion above?\u201d Olga\u2019s \u201clight breathing\u201d (<\/span>lyogkoye dykhanie)<\/span><\/i>, once she has crossed the barrier into death, becomes a (Miltonian-angelic) <\/span>vapor<\/span><\/i>, \u2018pure\u2019 of other elements, dispelled into a world that moves without it. \u2018Olga\u2019 as character has become \u2018vapor\u2019 as essence, and the transformation evoked at the beginning, from transgressive individual into \u2018stable matter,\u2019 is completed. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In examining Ivan Bunin\u2019s short story \u2018Light Breathing,\u2019 I break down the work into three \u2018images\u2019 of Olga, located at the beginning, middle, and end of the piece. These three images give a certain aesthetic symmetry to the piece, as well as characterize the object (Olga herself) of the narrative. The first image is of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[115,116,114],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russian-culture","tag-bunin","tag-late-romanticism","tag-symbolic-transformations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/372"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}